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Who Will Be Next to Call Nuclear Energy Indispensable?

Pool photo by Philippe WojazerThe G-8 Summit at Camp David last month. From the left: President Barack Obama, President Francois Hollande, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it.

In a highly unusual move for a Japanese politician, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda went on national television on Friday and told his fellow citizens that Japan could not maintain its economy or its current standard of living without restarting some of the nuclear reactors shuttered since the Fukushima disaster.

“Mr. Noda said he would order the restart of two reactors at the Ohi nuclear plant in western Japan once he gets the final approval from the local Fukui prefectural government, which is expected to make a decision as early as next week,” Martin Fackler reports.

“Cheap and reliable electricity are essential for supporting prosperous and decent livelihoods,” Mr. Noda said. “Japanese society cannot function if we stop or try to do without nuclear power generation, which has supplied 30 percent of our electricity.”

Such personal appeals are unusual in Japan’s often colorless political world and Mr. Noda’s was seen here as recognition of how the restart issue has polarized his nation. While many Japanese are now deeply distrustful of their government’s ability to oversee the politically powerful nuclear industry, others worry that power shortages could cost jobs and accelerate the nation’s industrial decline.

The national trauma of Fukushima, and its enduring effects, go a long way to explaining the need for Mr. Noda’s extraordinary intervention. Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan, premier during the Fukushima accident, testified last month that Japan could do without nuclear power.

However, global energy experts have been saying — in some cases, since the global call for a pullback from nuclear power post-Fukushima — that such calls were simply unrealistic.

In the IHT’s Energy Special Report last fall, Stephanie Cooke, editor of Energy Intelligence Group’s Nuclear Intelligence Weekly, detailed how the nuclear drawback was likely to be more talk than real change.

The world has no choice, given its growing energy needs, but to use nuclear power to meet some of that demand. “Forecasts from multiple sources, including the United Nations, nuclear industry executives, the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the International Energy Agency all point to a rise of at least 75 percent in nuclear power development by 2030,” wrote Andrés Cala in an IHT Green Energy Special Report last year.

In particular, Angela Merkel’s call that Germany cease all use of nuclear power has been pointed out as unworkable. And that criticism has intensified recently.

Who will be the next world leader to reverse the clarion call for a nuclear-free energy mix?